“Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel.”
(William Gurnall)

“The sanctified body is one whose hands are clean. The stain of dishonesty is not on them, the withering blight of ill-gotten gain has not blistered them, the mark of violence is not found upon them. They have been separated from every occupation that could displease God or injure a fellow-man.”
(A.B. Simpson)

To start off with, I’d say that we as humans are neither able to justify nor to sanctify ourselves in order to make our way to God. Instead, both transforming periods of spiritual life are gifts from our Father through Jesus Christ. While the first one, justification, changes our whole thinking regarding God, ourselves, and others, and gives us the bedrock our spiritual house can be built upon, the second process that sanctifies our whole being enables us to change our behavior, too.

(1) Justification

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5:1 KJV)

Justification is fundamental because we could not have ANY relationship with God if Jesus had not paid for the sins of the whole world, ours included. Justification can be considered as the fundament of faith and the “initiation” into divine life. Actually, justification is required in the very beginning of our common walk with God. It is a process, as is sanctification, but it is way shorter.

Before God puts us into this painful process where His light slowly begins to shine into the darkness of our hearts, we may believe that God and Jesus do exist, we may believe in the Trinity, we may know everything about theology, or we may be atheists, agnostics, or Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus – whatever. We may have had certain spiritual experiences before which were impressive, but what we might lack, still, is an assurance of faith, a doubtless conviction that God is always here, with us, and most importantly, FOR us.

Martin Luther exactly realized that it’s not possible for the natural man to know all about his sinful nature. There is a constant unconsciousness concerning the deeper roots of our sins until the Holy Spirit expands our awareness through His Light that scrutinizes the inner darkness, as it is written,

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (Jn 1:5 KJV).

Confronted for the first time with God’s bright light, we won’t like that process and would rather refuse to see what we ought to see inside our hearts. There is an inner rebellion and objection of our old Adam and old Eve against God’s purifying and enlightening work. It appears to be internally inconsistent that spiritual growth simultaneously means to accept fleshly wretchedness beyond all hope. Again and again to cry out,
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Day by day – that is anything but pleasant for the natural man and woman. Alas, God’s light detects EVERYTHING. He examines our whole past life in every (hidden) detail. Painful, indeed. No possibility left to behave self-righteously before the eternal and righteous God. Instead, humility is brought forth inside us and we think better about others than we think of ourselves.

Nonetheless, afterwards, when we have been justified by God, we KNOW that we have been forgiven. Completely. God does not point to the same sins any longer; it seems He forgot them all. And He also makes us forget our past wrongdoings. Eventually, we are able to get our minds off of our self, self-forgetfulness sets in, and a wholly new view of all things coupled with an increasing interest in heavenly things has started to change our spiritual being.

But what is the reason for spiritual growth itself? What enables us to look deeper and deeper into our fallen nature, into its wounds, its hurts, and its twisted thinking?

(2) Sanctification

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” (1 Thes 5:23-24 KJV)

Sanctification is the very answer to the question of how to be changed completely. It is the second and final step of spiritual life with God in Christ. However, there is a remarkably great difference between step one and step two. While justification ensures our access to God outside of us through prayer, sanctification means that God ensures His access to our inside by making His home within our hearts (John 14:23).
Now the Holy Spirit begins to pray inside of us since we do normally not know what we should pray for (Romans 8:26) unless God nudges us to pray the right prayers that are accompanied by that particular faith in our hearts and minds that knows He heard them all.
As the process continues, we can see more and more clearly that we are utterly helpless and lost without God and we realize that we need Him more than everything and everybody around us (cf. Mt 5:3).

But sanctification also means inner transformation, the cleansing of our heart, i.e., the painful circumcision of the very same (Romans 2:29) in order to bring forth the new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15) from the inside to the outside. While He is sanctifying our souls, God enables us to forgive everything that was ever committed toward us and He eventually heals our souls as if there had never been any offense. Or in other words, God makes us “Born Again Beings”, His beloved children, innocent spiritual babies who only know light, and love, and all good things to be their very nature. And finally, the tree of knowledge of good and evil has lost its appeal for those who are ONE with God who alone is good (Lk 18:19).

“Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.” (3 Jn 11 KJV)

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27 thoughts on “Justification vs. Sanctification”

Have you ever read a verse in a Bible translation and the Spirit nudge you that it was not translated correctly or that you should look deeper into the meaning of that verse? Well that is what just happened to me as I read the KJV translation above for 1 Thes. 5:23-24. I looked up the meaning of the Greek words and the CLV nailed!

Now may the God of peace Himself be hallowing [sanctifying] you wholly; and may your unimpaired spirit and soul and body be kept blameless IN the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ! Faithful is He Who is calling you, Who will be doing it also.
(1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 CLV – emphasis added)

We are kept blameless IN the presence of the Lord, NOW!!! We NOW dwell in heavenly places as we abide IN Jesus Christ! It is HERE IN HIM that the work of holiness is being done in us. So many of these very important verses are stripped of their power by these very scholastic but spiritually blind translators! Thank God that the Concordant Literal Version got this one right.

So, just as the Spirit is IN us, we are also IN Christ! It cleared up many a bad translation when I saw in the Greek the word “eis” should have been translated INTO not “in” or “upon” or “unto” which the translators insisted on doing with verses that have to do with our initial believing unto salvation, such as John 3:15, 17 and 18, “that whosoever believes INTO Him should not perish but have eternal life” etc. I stress this because if we as Christians only believe in Jesus and have not received faith that has transported us INTO HIM, our salvation is still lacking. One can believe IN the home football team and still never be playing on the field during the game. You have to be put INTO the team [into Christ’s body] to truly believe in the depth of what “believe” means in the Greek.. “to cling to, rely upon and totally trust IN” Jesus Christ.

So, then our sanctification is a product and process of WHERE (IN WHOM) we abide, not what we “believe” because we once said a “sinner’s prayer” and go to church each Sunday. As Paul so rightly said,

“That they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For IN him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”
(Acts 17:27-28 KJ2000 – emphasis added)

Is Jesus in us? Yes! Are we IN Jesus? Absolutely! it is both just as Jesus prayed,

“That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:” (John 17:21-22 KJ2000)

My dear sister, you wrote above, “God makes us “Born Again Beings”, His beloved children, innocent spiritual babies who only know light, and love, and all good things to be their very nature. And finally, the tree of knowledge of good and evil lost its appeal for those who are ONE with God who alone is good (Lk 18:19)”

YES! Herein is our Sanctification… being made ONE IN Jesus and the Father, and thus becoming ONE with each of His saints who have been made ONE with them! The Bride and the Bridegroom are becoming “one flesh.” “Faithful is He Who is calling you, Who will be doing it also.” Praise His wonderful name!

Thank you for this timely and wonderful reminder of what a GREAT salvation Jesus has made available to His called and chosen ones. Love you IN Him, Michael

You asked me, “Have you ever read a verse in a Bible translation and the Spirit nudge you that it was not translated correctly or that you should look deeper into the meaning of that verse?”

Oh yes, not only once. As long as one is devoid of the Spirit of God, he does not know which translation is the proper one and might get confused. However, if the Holy Spirit confirms it in our hearts and minds, we always know what is THE TRUTH without thinking about it any longer.

My favorite translation is Martin Luther’s German version (1912 and 1984). He was really Spirit-led while translating the New Testament into the German language. I often cringe when I see what many modern Bible translations offer as “the Word of God” since there are human wisdom and philosophies of men mingled into it. If you want a good Bible translation, you need a translator who knows God. Everything else is not the Holy Bible.

Thank you for another beautiful and God-breathed comment, my brother. I so appreciate your replies on my blogs. Thanks again!!! 🙂

Susanne, I think that God knew ahead of time that evil men would tamper with the Bible and make it say what they wanted to support their contrived doctrines. They have added to and taken away, just like Jesus warned them not to in the end of Revelation. God is not the author of confusion, yet these translations often contradict themselves. For instance it says in the KJV “Remember those who have rule over you…” referring to church leadership in Hebrews 13:7, Yet, Jesus said to the disciples that kings rule over the Gentiles, but they were NOT to be rulers over the people of God (see Mark 10:42). There are many scriptures that were tampered with by the KJV translators to please the King and his bishops (another non-biblical word). They created a hierarchy in the N.T. to gain dominion over the people of God by making Church leadership into positions of ruling power. If you are interested in what we found out in our study of how this came to pass and where many of the hierarchic passages are found, you can read it on line at http://www.awildernessvoice.com/GEC.html or we also send out our books for free.

The bottom line is that Jesus never promised to replace Himself with a leather-bond book of holy writ! But He did say this…

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment… When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:7-15 RSVA).

It was the Holy Spirit, the Counselor of God that spoke to Martin Luther about salvation by grace and not of works and it started a revolution in Christendom. If he had not heard the Holy Spirit, he would have stayed on as an spiritually ignorant Catholic monk. We owe much to each of the reformers who each heard the Spirit speak restorational truth to the Church. The Bible alone, as useful of a tool it is, did not do that. There is a reason Jesus repeats Himself seven times in the last recording of His words seven time, “Let he who has ears hear what the Spirit IS saying to the churches.”

Yes, the Bible alone would be of no help if the Holy Spirit did not enlighten the truth in our hearts. The first Christians had no Bible at all, and most probably many of them were illiterates, but they had the Spirit who led them into the whole truth.

Actually, I was already familiar with the “King-James-hierarchy-problem-thing”. Nonetheless, it might help others who read it here. Therefore, thanks again for pointing to that important historical fact!

I am not familiar with the Recovery Version of the Bible. But I just checked out a few verses on the net and they make complete sense to me (I guess to Michael too, esp. the first Scripture 😉 ).

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life. (Jn 3:16 Holy Bible Recovery Version)*

I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me. (Phil 4:13 Holy Bible Recovery Version)

[Emphasis added, cf. Wikipedia link below]

*John 3:16, note 2: Believing into the Lord is not the same as believing Him (John 6:30). To believe Him is to believe that He is true and real, but to believe into Him is to receive Him and be united with Him as one. The former is to acknowledge a fact objectively; the latter is to receive a life subjectively. (Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_Version)

Wow, Susanne! This REALLY blessed me to see that a Bible translator finally got it right! To believe INTO Christ is what the Greek says in all these salvation verses in the N.T. Then there is hundreds of them that speak of our relationship being IN Him after that. Thank you Fred and Susanne for bringing this translation to our attention. ⭐ 🐻

Fred, thanks for the link. I just wanted to caution you to read any translation and especially the footnotes that men write within translations that are often their own opinions… that we should always listen to the Spirit as to what is the truth and what is misleading and mere doctrines of men. In Hebrews we read,

“For every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Heb 5:13-14, RSV)

In our human way of thinking, God would have put a perfectly translated version of the Bible in our laps for us to read so we could take the whole thing at face value and not have to prayerfully read it with an ear to the Spirit. But to our natural minds we would rather that our natural minds could just take it all in. BUT that is not the way God thinks or does things, rather He wants us to grow up and to do so we need exercise and can not remain a babe in arms with a bottle stuck in our little mouths. We are to have our God given faculties, discerning both good and evil, trained and exercised so we CAN comprehend and eat solid spiritual food which comes by listening to and obeying the Spirit. In this way we learn the voice of our Shepherd and follow Him and know when someone is NOT speaking in His Spirit and reject it.

Yes and amen, Michael. Indeed, I had similar thoughts on my mind and I am relieved the see that God nudged you to write out your wise insights.

As for me, Fred, although I do have a preference for Martin Luther’s Bible translation (in German) because I believe he was truly Spirit-led when he would translate the first Bible (esp. the New Testament) into the German language, I am very cautious with all those other translations that were compiled by “not-so-spiritual” translators. We need to always listen to God’s guidance, just as Michael said, so that we can hear the words that were originally God-inspired.

Thank you for the info. I will admit I get confused easy. There are so many conflicting teachings that there are still a lot of things I don’t understand or know. I also need to be careful about what I see on facebook. The other day some one posted something that scared me as it was about making promises to GOD and to make sure you keep them even if you forget them. I felt like I had failed GOD and as of late I keep being tempted in the back of my head to make promises that I can not keep. It is frustrating me.

Ya I refuse to make promises as I know I can not keep them. I don’t think I have done so but I got worried that saying I will to him might be something I should not say either. I do not consider that a promise but if I say I will then I probably should do it. I think the temptation is coming from an external source.

I appreciate the spiritual food that I read here from Susanne and Michael. Sanctification was presented to me as a believer as meaning to set apart. Truly in Christ we are set apart. Judge the thought that I had as I read Susanne’s post. ” We invite Jesus the Christ to come in and clean us from sin because we can not do it. We invite Him to set us apart because we can not do it ourselves”.

Yes, you’re right, my sister. Wikipedia [The Free Encyclopedia] offers the following definition for the act of sanctification: To sanctify is to literally “set apart for particular use in a special purpose or work and to make holy or sacred.”

Regarding the thought you had while reading my post, I was reminded of Jesus’ words here,

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Rev 3:20 ESV)

Indeed, we cannot do anything on our own, neither can we cleanse ourselves from sin, nor can we set ourselves apart for Him. Speaking of invitation, I thought about the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Mt 22:1-14) where at first the Jews were called to come to Jesus, yet most of them didn’t. Afterwards (many of) the Gentiles were called,

“So the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Mt 22:10.14 ESV)

Actually, we must be cleansed by Him because we ought to be clothed with His righteousness as our wedding garment.

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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
(John 3:16-17 ESV)

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